


Exorcist House

by Spazzo47



Category: The Newsroom (US TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-22
Updated: 2017-10-22
Packaged: 2019-01-21 14:38:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12459852
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spazzo47/pseuds/Spazzo47
Summary: Pruitt sends a memo to all ACN producers with a plan for Halloween.  Mac talks to her closest advisors to come up with an alternative plan, but not everything works out the way they think.This is for LilacMermaid's October Challenge, "Mythology, Fantasy, and the Supernatural!"





	Exorcist House

“What the fuck is this, Mac?”

“You’re spending too much time with my husband, Jim.” Mac didn’t even look up; she knew what this was about. “Does that have my fucking name on it? Do you really think I would ever in a million years send a piece of shit edict out like that?”

“You’re starting to sound like him too.”

Mac glared at her protégé. “I’m sorry if I can’t be all sunshine and roses for you. I have a meeting with that dickwad we work for to talk about spending an entire news day covering an exorcism at the home that _The Exorcist_ movie was based on. During this meeting I will have to remind him AGAIN that he is not to go around me to my producers. And I’ll have to remind him that we are not fucking going to cover a God damned exorcism!”

As Mac’s voice climbed several octaves at the end of her statement, Jim’s eyes went wide and he started to slowly back away. “Ok, so I will break the news to Neal and I will try to keep Will from you until you take care of this.” At her look, he quickly added, “And you will, I have complete faith in you. And as for Will, I’ll lock him in his office if necessary to keep him away from here.”

Before Jim could turn around and run out of the office, Will walked in holding a piece of paper in his hand. “What the fuck is this, Mac?”

Mac rolled her eyes said, “Go talk to your EP. I need to get to a meeting. Jim, start your rundown without any mention of Halloween coverage.”

Mac left the office with the two men staring at each other for a second before they turned and left.

“Mackenzie Morgan McHale McAvoy. I had it in my head to start calling you 4M, but then I thought some women’s group may find another reason to file a complaint against me.”

“Lucas Douchebag Pruitt, you seem to have a lot of those, maybe you should consider getting out of such a high profile role. I’ve heard the 7/11 is hiring. I’m sure you’d make a great slushie.”

Pruitt smirked. “You must be wondering why I asked you up here.”

“I assume it has something to do with this fucking excuse for entertainment or disruption or whatever the fuck you’re after. You really want to open up a haunted house to the public and spend a whole day with them telling us what they saw? It’s the very definition of sensationalism and everything that we’re against. We are not going to piss away a full day on this shit. Or even a partial day. It’s not what we do.”

Pruitt smiled. “It’s brilliant isn’t it? Imagine, thousands of people walking in and out of the house. They take video and narrate themselves everything they see, real or imagined. Then they’ll tweet to their friends that they need to turn on our network to see what they saw. And then, maybe we can get a priest or someone to do a live exorcism again.”

“You’re fucking insane! Literally, are you feeling all right? We are a fucking news organization. Not a… whatever the hell you think.”

Pruitt sat back in his chair smiling. “It’s genius, 4M. I’m going to call marketing and get them working on publicity. We need to generate buzz. This is going to be great. People will finally understand why our catch phrase is ‘U R ACN’”

“Don was right, it looks like urine,” Mac said under her breath. “We’re a news network and we’re not going to play in a haunted fucking house.”

“You will put on anything I tell you to because I’ve had my lawyers look at the contract I signed. It cannot force me to keep any staff for more than 3 years. Your time and those people who follow you around like puppies is almost up. And if I find you completely insubordinate, I can fire your ass immediately.”

“Yes you can. But then it won’t be hard for my husband, whose face and voice are the bedrock of this network and who is also a lawyer, to bring yet another suit against you and make sure it’s the top news story every fucking night. We can make sure your face is known by every man, woman and child.”

“I’ll take my chances.” Pruitt punched a button on his phone and told his secretary to get marketing on the line. “Don’t you need to interrupt one of News Night’s meetings?”

“My journalists know what real news is, I don’t visit their meetings very often.” She stands behind the first part of that statement, but knows that the staff would disagree with the second half. But she thought she sold it to Pruitt and that’s all that matters.

“They need to know what the owner of this network has decided about Halloween.”

Mac turned around and left the office. She would get the EPs and anchors of _News_ _Night_ and _Right Now_ together for a strategy session. She’s been through enough with both staffs to know that they can help her figure out what to do, but she wanted to keep this initial meeting small, and without the enthusiasm that some of her conspiracy theorist staff might bring. Once she knows what they will do, she’ll communicate it to her shows.

<O><O><O><O><O>

“Pruitt’s not going to budge on this and he’s threatening my job.”

Don quickly answered, “No one’s going to stand for that. I guarantee, senior staff will walk out with you if he does.”

“And where does that leave us? Brandon will have two unemployed parents, you won’t be able to afford a ring for Sloan, we’ll add about 40 people to the unemployed masses, and there is no chance that ACN will ever cover news again. We need to come up with something else.”

“Well, we could just wait for it to crash and burn. History has shown that people don’t watch crap. That’s why we’re still able to do news during the day, right?” Elliot had a point. “We can make a deal, tell him that we’ll do the house for 8 hours and if it doesn’t get the ratings, then we do the news. And then we select midnight to 8 as the time.”

Don suggested, “What if we give him exactly what he wants?” Everyone looked at him verbalizing their disgust with the idea. “Hear me out. We give him a day. We make that the best fucking haunted house ever. Bloody mummies, zombies, ghosts around every corner. We do it up so well, that the audience tweets to say how bad it is. After he declares it a fucking disaster, he gives us our air back. That’s how he does most things, right? He has a temper tantrum and then he finds another shiny object to occupy him.”

Will looked at Don and said, “Is it okay for me to veto you now?” Don nodded his head. Will turned to the news division president. “We do the news. If he fires you, we’ll call Rebecca and the suit will write itself. Journalists, real journalists will rally around you and us.”

“And the entire network will be a laughing stock. I can’t leave here Will. This is the place where I fought for your soul and it’s the place I’m going to fight for journalism.” Mac took a second to think then said, “What if we let the morning show cover the house. They do as much entertainment as news anyway and we’re subtle about putting things in that might generate buzz. And then, there’s a leak that calls him out as a fraud.”

“Are you suggesting we plant a memo outlining this? Mac, I didn’t know you had something that underhanded in you? I’m even more impressed with you than usual.” Don shot her a smile.

“Watch it, Keefer. That’s my wife and you don’t want me reporting back to Sloane. She’ll have your balls.”

“She already does. But I wasn’t flirting, I’m genuinely impressed with the deviousness and scheming.”

“Well if Don’s this excited, I’m definitely against it.” Will grumbled.

Mac tried not to smile, she shouldn’t encourage him or even suggest this, but she hoped that maybe this group could brainstorm something legitimate from this asinine idea. “I’m not saying that we create something. I’m suggesting that we can… find someone to work directly with him that would make sure he orders such things.”

Elliot and Will noticed a gleam in her eye. Will shook his head. He thought she was just throwing out an idea to get a discussion going, but somewhere in her pause, she actually bought into it and he didn’t like it.

Elliot smiled wide. “Jane Barrow. You can assign this to her and convince her to lead him to those directives. No one sucks up like Jane.”

Don added, “She’s like a Hoover.” The EP and his anchor from _Right Now_ high fived while the team from _News Night_ looked at each other and shifted uncomfortably in their chairs.

“Aren’t we counting on the lamest rumor in the history of rumors turning into a massive controversy in the course of a day?” Jim asked.

“Thank God I’m not alone!”

Mac looked at Will and Jim. “That’s twice now that you’ve said something he would have. One more today and you’re out on account of redundancy.” She looked at the group and got serious again. “I don’t like this any better than you, but I haven’t heard any better options.”

Jim looked around him. “If we have to do this, how do we make it a big story? Moving furniture doesn’t do anything.”

Don said, “I got an invitation from him for a naughty Halloween party The Saturday before the date. A well-timed expose that chronicles his continued indiscretions would add fuel to the fire. Maybe get a competitor to run it, get a tweeter to make the connection?”

Elliot smiled wide and said, “Or get a gossip rag to cover the party and the house. Let them report both at the same time. Will, do you still talk to Nina Howard?”

All eyes immediately moved to Elliot. “Yeah, she comes over for afternoon tea with me and my wife every day.” Elliot mouthed “sorry” to Will.

Mac thought about it. “Maybe not Nina, but do we know anyone else who can blow something this small out of proportion?”

“Look at the news, isn’t that all mainstream media does anymore? When was the last time Trump had a bowel movement that wasn’t covered and analyzed to death? Fuck, we have another year of this shit, don’t we?”

Mac looked at her husband. “Keep serious politics out of this. We have to make a mockery of everything we are to fight for everything we can be.” Mac took a long moment to make a decision. “I’ll talk to Jane, get her on board. Give her some ideas that she will undoubtedly feed to Pruitt with the enthusiasm of a… dog who sees a… cat and…

“We get it Mac. You can’t do analogies.” Will teased.

Mac shot her husband a look that made him put his eyes down. “Don, you talk to Nina. Just try not to look too closely at her legs.” Mac gave another pointed look to her husband who knew he was going to be as disappointed as her allegorical dog tonight.

Will stayed behind while the rest of the group left. “You know this is a bad idea, don’t you?”

“And getting fired is a good one?”

“Any network would hire you in a second and you know it.”

Mac put her head back and nodded. “I’ve spent two and a half years fighting for the integrity of this network. And the 3 years before that fighting for your show. I can’t just leave it. It’s not my way… anymore.”

“Our show. It was ours.”

“Fine, our show. I can’t give him a day, Will. I can’t let him win an entire day and undermine everything we’ve been doing.”

“But you can give up on _your_ integrity? Six years ago you told me to be the integrity, be the leader. That pep talk changed my life. Now I think you need it. Be the integrity, Mac. You are better than this shit and you know it.”

“And if I don’t take your advice, will you still love me?”

Will gave her a disappointed look. “Yes, but it’ll be a little more reluctantly.” Will then smiled at her and kissed her. “I will always love you, no matter how much stupid shit you do. I just want to protect you from regrets. I’ve lived with enough of them for both of us.”

<O><O><O><O><O><O>

Soon after the meeting Jim sent Mac an email that included Neal’s ideas for creating “a killer haunted house”. Apparently Neal read the memo and started putting ideas down. When Jim told him that they’re serious journalists and won’t be helping with this, he understood, but gave the list anyway in case anyone could use it. What Jim neglected to tell her was that Neal wanted to join Jane’s team to put it together. Jim told him that he couldn’t because “Mac is trying to protect all of us.” When Neal understood what Jim meant, he asked who’s protecting Jane. Jim insisted that Mac wouldn’t let anyone take a hit from this.

With Neal’s list in front of her, Mac called down to DC to talk directly to Jane. Mac said she didn’t want to have anything to do with this other than being in the loop so she can let everyone know what to expect. Then she asked Jane to work with Pruitt on it. Jane jumped at the chance, it meant getting to work closely with the network owner and CEO. Mac felt a little sick as she thanked the eager anchor. Mac said she’d get an Email out to the two of them stating Jane would be leading this and putting down some guidelines. In the email, Mac made a point of listing some of Neal’s ideas as things she absolutely did not want to see happen.

For the next two weeks Mac monitored emails about the event, and every once in a while wrote a response saying no to particularly bad ideas. Don told her that he’d talked to Nina and she was on board. He added that he did look and Nina’s legs and he thinks Mac’s are better. Mac answered, “I guess that’s why I’m married to the anchor.”

After his show on October 30, Will reminded Mac she didn’t have to go through with this. Halloween is on a Saturday, they really don’t report a lot of news unless there’s something big happening. She can call off Nina and save the network from this embarrassment. If she lets this go this time, it will be forgotten about. Mac dug in her heels and said, “and then he wins. You don’t know what it’s like working directly for him, Will.”

“If you need me to talk to him.”

“We’re doing this.”

Nina arranged for some Page 6 interns to be the first to go into the house during the morning show. As the weekend anchors interviewed them coming out, they immediately said how terrible it was. They tweeted about it and Page 6 made sure those tweets went viral and ran headlines suggesting the house was a stunt. By 10AM, Page 6 ran the pictures of Pruitt’s Halloween Party and asked why a man in trouble with several women’s groups would throw a party like this. Pruitt’s people responded immediately stating that he has a lot of respect for women and that his ACN president is a woman who he greatly admires and respects. At that point, they publicly showed the email string Mac had with him and questioned how much he actually respected her. When Mac got a call that there was an emergency board meeting at noon, she wasn’t surprised, but she didn’t feel good about it. She finished making Brandon his lunch and promised she’d be back to take him trick or treating. The board decided that they had no choice but to remove Lucas Pruitt as CEO for the repeated embarrassment he caused to the company. If he chose to remain an owner, he would be a silent partner. The board granted Mac complete control over news operations until a CEO could be named. Then they asked about Jane Barrow who had followed his lead over Mac’s. Mac stated that Jane was simply following her instructions. However, the news articles that followed the story ran Jane’s pictures and it looked like she was trying to dupe the public as well.

Mac called Will, Jim, Elliot and Don with the news. Each congratulated her on the win. She did get home in time to take Brandon trick or treating with Will. Will dressed as a Nebraska football player, Brandon a football and Mac as a cheerleader. They had talked about Will and Mac switching costumes, but Will wondered if when the pictures went public would anyone seeing his legs be able to take him seriously. As Mac rushed to get ready, she remembered a few weeks ago when they chose their costumes. Mac suggested she could be the player and Will the cheerleader. Will argued that he didn’t want some of the ladies in the neighborhood to see his legs so exposed, they may get ideas. Mac said they would be looking at his legs. She didn’t expect then that Halloween would be like this.  

After Will and Mac put Brandon to bed, they finally had a chance to talk. “Are you sure you were never a cheerleader?”

Mac gave him a look. “Are you sure you actually played football? I’ve seen you throw, McAvoy.”

“Peyton can’t throw either and I think he’s going to get the Broncos to the Superbowl this year.”

“You know I don’t know what any of those words mean.”

Will laughed at his wife and put his arms around her while she changed into her t-shirt and pajama pants. As they settled into bed he asked, “Was it that bad?”

Mac shrugged her shoulders. “Everyone says I won. I got everything I wanted. Pruitt is out. I have complete control of ACN until the network is either sold again or a new CEO is found. It’s a win for journalism.”

“Was it that bad?”

“I can’t say I regret it because I did get everything I wanted. And it will be best for everyone. But I don’t like how I got it.” Will looked at her, feeling that she hadn’t finished. She shrinked back at the eye contact and in a small voice said, “I have to fire Jane. She was following my orders, and I couldn’t protect her. The press crucified Pruitt, and she was too closely aligned. Because I told her to be.”

Will tilted her head up and gave her a soft kiss on her mouth. “Do you know what I love most about you?”

Mac rolled her eyes, “Those parts that helped make Brandon?”

“I’m serious, Mac. I mean I love those too, but the thing that makes me stay in love with you, do you know what it is?”

Mac rolled her eyes. She’s heard this many times. “My passion for the news, and/or my passion period.”

“That’s part of it. But I think the thing I love even more than that is your integrity. You pride yourself on doing things the right way and getting things right. You make everyone around you, including me, want to be better people just because we see your integrity. I knew that this was a bad idea, not because I didn’t think it would work but because I knew you would hate yourself when it did.”

Mac let that sink in and felt a tear roll down her face. “What do I do now? How do I face Jane and tell her she’s fired because she listened to me? How do I face Don and let him know that even though I sunk down low, it’s not worthy of respect?”

“I can’t tell you how to talk to Jane. I fired a lot of EPs before you came back and that’s not how you’re going to do it. As for Don, he knows a million other reasons to look up to you, he won’t think about this one.”

Mac cuddled into her husband. “I’m sorry. You were right. I shouldn’t have done this.”

“I’m sorry I was right too.” Will rubbed her back as they lay in bed.


End file.
